Do you ever pine for your deck?

I was thinking about this yesterday.

I was out with a friend. We had a nice evening, but as I was returning home, I was thinking how much I was looking forward to getting home, shuffling my deck and browsing through Aeclectic with it on the side by my computer - ready to find a card if it was mentioned, doing my daily draw.

Today on the train, I was reading a book on the tarot and it was illustrated with the Universal Waite. I didn't have the deck with me and probably wouldn't have got it out if I did, but felt a little empty that I didn't have it there to refer to.

I do take my deck with me sometimes but not always. The cards are such a part of my daily routine that it feels almost unnatural to spend a day without shuffling them, looking through them a little or using them in some way.

It feels like starting out on a journey without a map; leaving your purse behind or once out and about, remembering that you forgot to close a window or left the iron on.

This may sound weird and I am not looking at them as some kind of 'human' or friend, but I was wondering if others feel the same. I have been working with the tarot for just under a decade and I have had my RWS that long. They have been an important part of my routine and when seperated from them, it does feel weird. I think that I might slip them in my bag tomorrow, even if there is not even a point when they get taken out of it.

Sound stupid? What do you think?

LB

You're asking the addicts if they miss having a constant fix?!

I always carry a deck when I go out, sometimes two, and have decks scattered all around the house, besides the main stockpile . . . and refuse to feel strange about it I think they might hold the walls up, keep the power on, and probably make breathing possible . ..

Yep, definately know what you mean. You should see me when I am going on holiday. I want to take them all and yet I know I can't, so a major part of my holiday planning involves which decks (and books!) to take with me. I tell you it is not a pretty sight. Everyone else is counting shoes and I am counting decks!

Funnily enough, I never think of them at work and that's probably because (like everyone else in the NHS), I am overworked and underpaid and so there is no point in taking them because they wont come out of my bag.

That said, everytime I go on a car journey I take them (hubby usually drives) and I just sit and shuffle. Its very therapeutic...

Well, maybe it might sound stupid to others (probably no one here, though), it doesn't sound stupid to me considering I have felt the same way. I took a couple decks with me this past weekend when I went away just for overnight. I didn't even take them out. In fact, I bought a new deck on my travels. But I really wouldn't have felt right leaving for that long without a tarot deck with me. "Pining" for a tarot deck is precisely the feeling I would describe when I have felt that slight "emptiness" when I know I don't have one with me and would like to. I ascribe it to the deep connectedness one makes with tarot, with particular decks, because the searching one does with these cards is so intimate. Tarot takes us on a journey of discovery in so many ways. I think we do, some of us, generate an affection for the cards.

~Mercy

I understand Mercyme ... I always take one or two when I stay over somewhere for a night. I like to snuggle down wherever I am staying and look through them before I go to sleep. The RWS is very good for this because the pictures are so 'part of me' that I feel them and when I look at them now, it is like looking at an old childhood photo album or story-book. I couldn't imagine going anywhere for any longer without a deck - especially a favourite like that. I do alternate decks a lot but it is either the Marseille or RWS that is usually picked. I just feel comfortable around them. My RWS has accompanied me to other countries, towns and cities and has been handled by many people. It feels as though it has experienced a lot of what I have - not just in being there but the many different experiences I have personally layered within it's images. I think it is that particular copy that is important too as it shows the tatters of experience.

Jewel-ry, I also do that when I am in the car. Sometimes, I just hold it and try to feel it's energy as a mass.

LB

Imagemaker said:

I think they might hold the walls up, keep the power on, and probably make breathing possible . ..

Click to expand...

Haha .. I love that Imagemaker.

It is not unusual to see a copy snuggled up in the bathroom here. For some bazzaar reason, I shuffle them when I am running a bath. Sometimes, I think I will look through while I am actually relaxing and soaking but I never do. But they always seem to find themselves in there. Then there are the ones on the table, on the dresser, in the bag....

LB

I have a deck on me always. There is always at least one in my handbag and when I go on a trip it's such decision on what decks to take along.

I find it's the worst though at work (where I have internet access and time to play here) when someone is discussing a deck here on AT and I realise I left it at home and I really need it to refer to some point or something.

Has anyone noticed it's the deck you decide to leave behind that's the deck you end up really wanting?

LittleBuddha said:

My RWS has accompanied me to other countries, towns and cities and has been handled by many people. It feels as though it has experienced a lot of what I have - not just in being there but the many different experiences I have personally layered within it's images. I think it is that particular copy that is important too as it shows the tatters of experience.

Click to expand...

This is exactly what I was getting at: the "many different experiences [we] have personally layered within [our decks'] images." They really do become more than a possession, but an extension of ourselves, a scrapbook in a way, contained in cards.

~Mercy

An odd experience for me...

We were doing a coastal visit and there were some historical and folkloric sculptures around...and we were in small adobe structures where there were old kitchens, garlic and peppers hanging, quaint and tiny chairs, pots and pans...and after I took digital pictures and we did our walking, we went to dinner and then a Borders...and I saw the Ancient Italian Tarot and a book that used those old style illustrations...and I just had to have the Ancient Italian deck!

Formerly, I only would go for finely engraved decks, not the stencilled misprints or woodblocks...but there was something so dignified and yet homey and somehow beautiful about the misprinting. I found the Temperance card so lovely,
as you see in this link:

http://www.villarevak.org/ma/d1.html

I don't know why, but it was like buying old turn-of-the-century valentine cards or sepia postcards at a collectable store--there's a faded charm that whispers and welcomes quiet reflection.

Thank you for such a nice topic!

Cerulean

I'd have to say Yes...

When I've gone away somewhere for a few days I tend to take atleast one deck with me, preferrably two or three of different styles.
Normally, only one deck is in my bag (which is pretty much with me everywhere except for short walks with the dog) but when I know I'll be away from my collection for a while, I want to have a small selection with me so I can choose what deck to use if I want to bring them out.

If I didn't have a deck with me, I'd probably feel a bit blank.. Like having something missing, only one sock or having forgotten mittens on a walk during the winter. Or just a slitely disturbing feeling that something was missing and I couldn't even look it up if I felt a need to.

There are other forms of divination I could turn to if something like that felt needed, but there's something about those packs of cards...